Fr. Sebastian MacDonald, CP
Renewal through Compassion within our own lives
Jesus is cited in Mt. 22.39 (NABRE) as saying: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”.
Some of us may regard this as too self-centered. But it is realistic. Any semblance of self-disdain is an impediment to love of others, God included. To be concerned about one’s own well-being is needed to show a similar concern for others, just as to be anxious to stay in good health is needful if we intend to help others suffering poor health. Compassion for others depends on compassion for oneself.
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Renewal through Compassion within our Ministries and Mission
We will not be energized to act compassionately in the pursuit of our ministry and mission unless we encounter situations that are crying out for our attention. We need to be sensitive to situations in our ministry calling out for a compassionate response on our part. So we should be on the lookout for these needs, whose discovery can alert us to wider dimensions of our ministry, and make us ever more alert and proficient (renewal for ourselves) at engaging our ministry and mission with vigor.
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Renewal through Compassion through our global community
Living, as we do, in a so-called first world nation, we can be unaware of the dire needs of those living in less developed places. Given the expansive presence of our Passionist community in at least 52 nations of the world, we are positioned to learn of situations in grave need of our compassionate attention. This may come about through opportunities made available to us to visit and attend to some situations in need of a compassionate response, or at least to host visiting Passionists from these areas who can energize our compassionate concern.
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Renewal through Compassion toward our environment
The easier the phrase “mother nature” comes to our lips when we learn of such environmental issues as rising seas, and elevated weather temperatures, and the desperate plight of life forms either trying to survive or to escape these threats, the more likely will we be to bring a kind of maternal response, such as compassion, upon these dire developments. This situation can trigger an experience of compassion within us that may be lying dormant, and sensitize whatever meager response we can make to environmental endangerment. There is nothing sadder to witness than a “dumb” animal suffering intensely but unable to articulate its pain.
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Renewal through Compassion within our communities
We may be so busily engaged in drawing others’ attention to the plight of the planet before environmental dangers that we tend to overlook or downplay threatening encroachments at our very doorsteps, that is, in the community settings which engage our time, talents and commitment. The people passing by us daily, all unknown to us, may be bearing significant life problems that they do not feel free to disclose, or that do not provide them a pathway to relief from potentially compassionate neighbors. Awareness of some of these situations can help relocate our concerns from being too self-serving ones to new areas of relief that can also equally engage our attention.
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Renewal through Compassion within our communities
Those of us privileged to walk with others through their vocational quest may be surprised at the strength and resilience they manifest in the course of resolutely pursuing this task. Often they gain little support either from family or friends in this effort. And, in the case of those who have adopted a vocation already, they may come to difficult spells in trying to follow the path they have decided to pursue, and feel they have made a wrong choice. Since an entire life is at stake in this matter, and not just a passing episode, there is ample ground for compassion to come into play on their behalf. One seeking to be of help at this difficult time may so identify with the struggle that something similar may be triggered in him or her also, leading to a renewal of one’s own commitment to the vocation before them.
Click here to return to our Lent 2016 webpage.
Renewal through Compassion in education
The education process involves both teacher and student, each of which positions offer ample opportunity for experiencing the need of compassion. There are teachers suffering depression, either because he/she is not measuring up to the qualifications of a good teacher, or because he/she faces a recalcitrant group of students rebelling at each stage of the process. Or, from the viewpoint of the student, there may be resentment, or inability to understand the rationale underlying the course he or she is taking. Working through these impasses can be achieved with the help of an academic advisor or a counselor who gains the trust of either student or teacher by a genuine display of concern that serves to bond them both together in a sense of mutuality.